First off, we'd like to... apologize. Many of our readers expected the part 2 of our Oblivion preview. Every single week we received inquiries about the preview. Time and again, the editorship of AG.ru sought permission of Bethesda Softworks, but its PR department, in the person of vice-president Pete Hines, was impervious to our requests, completely forgetting about the promise made back in the autumn 2005, even after the flood of the first previews on english-speaking game sites.

What a dick!

The better stealth system is introduced for all those thieves and assassins that prefer a 6x damage modifier to a fair battle. But don't be fooled by the loading screen info-bits: the system is primitive, and pales in comparison to those of Thief: Deadly Shadows or Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory. The game does take boot weight and illumination into account, but the only indicator that player sees is the eye icon, which has only two states: "visible" and "hidden", making it impossible to tell why the guard spotted the player hidden in the darkness. How much noise did he make? How reflective was the mithril helm? Can an NPC that stands near the waterfall hear the footsteps? Take a guess.

But even if the abovementioned problems were solved, you still wouldn't be able to play the roles of Garret or Fisher in Oblivion, because Bethesda has dumbed down thieving as well. For one thing, every single item, be it a loaf of bread, dagger or a horse is equipped with a RFID-chip, instantly informing the law-abiding merchants (yes, they all are) if the item is stolen. If it is, then you are left with only one option: find a shady fellow from some thief guild, because nobody else would ever buy it, no sirre. Second, the breaking news of someone's murder will reach almost every soul in the country, right at the moment it's commited. Third, you can't escape the piercing gaze of the law enforcers - they'll spot the dubious content of your backpack in an instant. "Look what we got here - a stolen teacup! What would you like: lemon tea, green tea, pay a fine, go to prison, resist arrest?"